Thinking Big: From Chips To Systems

By Ed Sperling - 27 Feb, 2024 - Comments: 0

Semiconductor Engineering sat down with Aart de Geus, executive chair and founder of Synopsys, to talk about the shift from chips to systems, next-generation transistors, and what's required to build multi-die devices in the context of rapid change and other systems. SE: What are the biggest changes you're seeing in the chip industry these days, and why now? de Geus: It's not just the siz... » read more

Backside Power Delivery Gears Up For 2nm Devices

By Laura Peters - 26 Feb, 2024 - Comments: 1

The top three foundries plan to implement backside power delivery as soon as the 2nm node, setting the stage for faster and more efficient switching in chips, reduced routing congestion, and lower noise across multiple metal layers. The benefits of using this approach are significant. By delivering power using slightly fatter, less resistive lines on the backside, rather than inefficient fro... » read more

Big Changes Ahead In Power Delivery, Materials, And Interconnects

By Laura Peters - 22 Mar, 2023 - Comments: 0

Part one of this forecast looked at evolving transistor architectures and lithography platforms. This report examines revolutions in interconnects and packaging. When it comes to device interconnects, it’s hard to beat copper. Its low resistivity and high reliability have served the industry exceedingly well as both on-chip interconnect and wires between chips. But in logic chips, with int... » read more

Self-Heating Issues Spread

By Brian Bailey - 13 Mar, 2023 - Comments: 1

With every new node there are additional physical effects that must be considered, but not all of them are of the same level of criticality. One that is being mentioned more frequently is self-heating. All devices consume power and when they do that, it becomes heat. "In essence, all active devices generate heat as carriers move, creating channels for current to pass through the gates," says... » read more

IEDM: Backside Power Delivery

By Paul McLellan - 09 Mar, 2023 - Comments: 0

One part of the short course that I attended at IEDM in December was about backside power delivery networks. It was presented by Gaspard Hiblot of imec and titled "Process Architectures Changes to Improve Power Delivery." The presentation is co-credited with Geert Hellings and Julien Ryckaert. I should preface this post with the fact that this presentation was 80 slides long and so I will only... » read more

The Other Side Of The Wafer: The Latest Developments In Backside Power Delivery

By Sandy Wen - 16 Feb, 2023 - Comments: 0

At the beginning of my career in semiconductor equipment, the backside of the wafer was a source of anxiety. In one memorable instance in my early career, several wafers flew off a robot blade during a wafer transfer. After cleaning up the mess, we remembered that a variety of thin films could be deposited on the wafer backside, which could decrease its friction coefficient. Slowing down the wa... » read more

Challenges In Backside Power Delivery

By Laura Peters - 17 Nov, 2022 - Comments: 0

One of the key technologies to enable scaling below 3nm involves delivering of power on the backside of a chip. This novel approach enhances signal integrity and reduces routing congestion, but it also creates some new challenges for which today there are no simple solutions. Backside power delivery (BPD) eliminates the need to share interconnect resources between signal and power lines on t... » read more

Which Foundry Is In The Lead? It Depends.

By Ed Sperling - 26 Oct, 2022 - Comments: 2

The multi-billion-dollar race for foundry leadership is becoming more convoluted and complex, making it difficult to determine which company is in the lead at any time because there are so many factors that need to be weighed. This largely is a reflection of changes in the customer base at the leading edge and the push toward domain-specific designs. In the past, companies like Apple, Google... » read more

How To Compare Chips

By Ed Sperling - 15 Sep, 2022 - Comments: 0

Traditional metrics for semiconductors are becoming much less meaningful in the most advanced designs. The number of transistors packed into a square centimeter only matters if they can be utilized, and performance per watt is irrelevant if sufficient power cannot be delivered to all of the transistors. The consensus across the chip industry is that the cost per transistor is rising at each ... » read more

Designing For Thermal

By Karen Heyman - 13 Sep, 2022 - Comments: 0

Heat has emerged as a major concern for semiconductors in every form factor, from digital watches to data centers, and it is becoming more of a problem at advanced nodes and in advanced packages where that heat is especially difficult to dissipate. Temperatures at the base of finFETs and GAA FETs can differ from those at the top of the transistor structures. They also can vary depending on h... » read more

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Knowledge Centers
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